Hydro- physical, biological and economic study on simply, an environment- friendly and valuable rice straw-based hydrogel production

Abstract

In a recent study, we synthesized hydrogel from various sources, where we carried out their identification and characterization, and then rice straw-based hydrogel (SH) was used to cultivate beans and maize in both sandy and calcareous soils, comparing it to acrylamide hydrogel (AH). In this work, we focused only on the biological effects and effectiveness of the hydrogel made from rice straw on sandy and calcareous soils, as well as the economic analysis of hydrogel synthesized from rice straw. Biological effects and efficiency of two different ratios, 0.2% & 0.4%, from SH and AH were investigated using an incubation experiment that presents at the National Research Centre. The results generally showed that the two ratios of the hydrogels (AH & SH) improved the hydro-physical (moisture content, bulk density, particle density, total soil porosity, soil moisture retention curve, and pores diameters), physiochemical (organic matter, organic carbon), and biological (total count of bacteria, dehydrogenase and nitrogenase in the rhizosphere) properties on the two types of soil textures used. On the other hand, calculating the cost of producing one tonne of SH and comparing it to AH's price and attributes allowed for an economic appraisal. According to the data, one tonne of AH costs $2727 to import, compared to $1106 for one tonne of SH.